


Night Light

by superqueerdanvers



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Magic, Post-Will of the Empress, ep 173 fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:28:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24925420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superqueerdanvers/pseuds/superqueerdanvers
Summary: Sandry wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt as she, Jon, and Martin walked down the dark street. It had been over a decade since she’d sat alone in the cellar, waiting for her lamp to go out, but she still hated the dark.
Relationships: Trisana Chandler & Daja Kisubo & Briar Moss & Sandrilene fa Toren
Comments: 14
Kudos: 17





	Night Light

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not really sure how the logistics of this would work or how someone from a medieval fantasy world ended up travelling through the Apocalypse in 21st-century Britain, but I kept thinking about Sandry on Night Street and I had to write it.

Sandry wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt as she, Jon, and Martin walked down the dark street. It had been over a decade since she’d sat alone in the cellar, waiting for her lamp to go out, but she still hated the dark.

Jon seemed upset and distracted, and Martin asked if he was alright. While Sandry was usually in favor of people opening up and talking about their feelings, she couldn’t help but agree with Jon when he said, “Look, I would just _really_ like to get through here as quickly as possible.”

“How come?” Martin asked. “This one seems like the quietest place we’ve been in a while – it’s just rows and rows of quiet houses. I mean, I know some people don’t like that sort of thing –“

“Like me,” Sandry snapped.

Martin looked back and forth between Sandry and Jon. “ _What_ is going on with you two?”

Sandry crossed her arms. “I spent several days trapped alone in a dark cellar as a child. Pardon me if I’m a bit afraid of the _dark_!” She winced at her sharp tone.

“Oh.” Martin’s voice was soft. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

She sighed. “You couldn’t have. Let’s just go.”

They walked on for a few moments, then Martin said, “Okay, but that doesn’t explain Jon.”

Jon didn’t reply.

“Jon, what’s wrong? Where are we?”

“I-It’s complicated.”

“That’s not an answer!” Martin pointed out.

“Can we _please_ just move on?”

Sandry wanted to, but Martin had a point. “Jon, what is this place?” she asked.

Jon stopped and took a deep breath. “What do you think happened to all the children when the world changed? Or were you not thinking about it?”

* * *

A few minutes later, they stood on Callum Brodie’s doorstep, listening to him tell the story of his kidnapping and rescue. Sandry felt sick to her stomach. “And it was after that you started shoving smaller kids into cupboards, right?” Jon asked.

Callum smirked. “Yeah, give _them_ a taste of it. Make _them_ afraid of the dark.”

“How could you?!” Sandry burst out. “How – how could you want _anyone_ else to go through that? _Especially_ children!”

He shrugged. “Why not? I never liked kids anyway. They make me feel sick.”

“That doesn’t give you the excuse to hurt them! You don’t get to take out your trauma on people smaller than you!”

Jon touched her arm. “Sandry.”

She ignored him. “They weren’t the ones who hurt you! They’re just _kids_!”

“Sandry!” Jon’s voice was firm. Despite her protests, he and Martin pulled her away from the door.

Back in the street, Sandry wiped away tears – from fear or anger, she couldn’t tell – and pulled out the glowing crystal her foster siblings had given her. Her breathing steadied as she took in its silvery light.

Jon looked from Sandry to Martin. “You see?”

“See what, Jon; what am I supposed to see? That you don’t want to kill a thirteen year old kid? Big revelation,” Martin retorted.

“I don’t know what you want me to do.”

“I want you to _use your power._ I want you to help them; I want you to make things better!” Martin said, and Sandry nodded.

”There is no _better_ anymore,” Jon said bitterly.

“That can’t be true!” Sandry protested.

“It _is_ true.”

“We can’t just _leave_ children here! We can’t just leave them alone in the dark!”

“Yes, we can. You projecting onto them doesn’t change the fact that the only thing that will help _anyone_ is to destroy the Panopticon.”

Sandry stared at him in shocked silence. “But –“ Martin said.

“ _What_ , Martin? What do you want from me?” Jon said exasperatedly. “ _Tell_ me what you want me to do, and I will do it!”

Martin hesitated, then answered quietly, “Tell me about this place. I need to know.”

“I thought you hated listening.” He paused, and met Martin’s eyes. “Are you… sure that’s what you want?”

Martin sighed. “Of course it’s not. But I need to hear it.”

“Okay. Sandry?” He looked at her. “You don’t need to stick around for this, if…”

She took a deep breath and gripped her crystal tight. “No, I… I need to know.”

* * *

Jon finished the statement. “Was that what you wanted? What you needed?”

Sandry wiped her eyes and shook her head. Her knuckles were white on her crystal. “No, it didn’t help at all,” Martin said.

“I’m sorry,” Jon said.

After a moment, Martin picked up his backpack again. “Let’s get out of here.”

Sandry looked at her crystal. Its light made the silk embroidery on her sleeve seem to glow. She made a decision. “No,” she said quietly.

“What?” Jon asked.

“I’m not leaving. Not yet.”

Martin looked at her. “Sandry, the sooner we get back to the Archives, the sooner we can put a stop to this. _All_ of this. They just – they’ll just need to hang on a little longer.”

“The only reason I didn’t die in that cellar is that someone found me and saved me. It’s time to pass it on.” She met Jon’s eyes defiantly. “ _You_ might not be able to help them now, but _I_ can.”

She sat down on the asphalt and set her crystal in front of her. She’d called light to thread before, but only thread she was working with, braiding or spinning. She didn’t think she could call light to the finished cloth of curtains and linens in the houses directly. She reached into the pouch on her belt that served as a smaller version of her mage kit and pulled out a drop spindle and a piece of silk thread. Martin started to ask, “What are you –“ but she tuned him out and focused on her magic.

She breathed slowly and rhythmically – inhale, hold, exhale. Winding the thread around the spindle as a leader, she began to spin. She reached toward her crystal and drew some of its light to her leader thread. Before long, she was past her leader and was spinning pure light.

Eventually, she stopped and pinched off the end of her thread of light. She unwound it from her spindle, pinching off the other end to separate it from her leader. She tossed the thread toward the window of the nearest house, and it went through the window and wove itself into the fabric of the curtains. Then, raising a hand toward the window, she called the light from her thread to the rest of the curtain. The white fabric shone. Sandry was vaguely aware of Jon and Martin’s sounds of surprise. She smiled, then began to spin again.

After a while, she had managed to weave light into the curtains of several houses, but many more were still dark. She sat back, thinking. It would take her a long time to weave light into all the curtains, and was it just her mind playing tricks on her, or was the crystal’s light slightly dimmer? And what about the children like Jack, who weren’t close to the windows? Glowing curtains wouldn’t help them, and she couldn’t light up every textile on Night Street. She rubbed the lump on her palm, and had an idea.

She called to her siblings with her magic. _Daja? Tris? Briar? I need your help with something._

They responded instantly, feeling her fear and wanting to know what was wrong. She showed them Night Street and told them about Callum and the other children. Before she could explain what she was trying to do, static electricity filled the air. Sparks danced over Callum’s doorframe.

_Tris, no! He’s just a kid! I don’t want to fight him, I just want to light up this street so these children aren’t trapped in the dark._

_…Fine._ The sparks disappeared. _But he needs to learn not to treat people like that._

_Agreed. But that’s not what we’re doing right now._

_So what are we doing?_ Briar asked.

_I’m working on calling light to the curtains, but it’s not enough, and I won’t be able to do all of them. Can you help?_

_Of course._ Daja sent a wave of warmth through her and Sandry’s magic, and it was as good as a hug.

 _The streetlamps are powered by lightning, right? I can take care of that,_ Tris said.

 _There’s plants all round, and they use sunlight to grow. I bet I can get them to remember that light,_ added Briar.

 _I can make wires of light and help you with the curtains,_ said Daja.

They set to work.

Tris sent small bolts of lightning flying to each streetlamp, and they blazed to life. Briar talked to the plants, reminding them of the warm sunlight that had nourished them and asking them for their help. Slowly, leaves and blades of grass began to glow. Sandry and Daja wove threads and wires of light into curtain after curtain.

Finally, the four mages surveyed their work. The streetlamps shone brighter than they ever had. The lawns and trees glowed a soft green. Curtains glimmered in every window they could see. It was beautiful. Still… _One more thing,_ Daja said. _Tris, can you spark that bit of dead grass for me? Just the dead grass, Briar, don’t get your loincloth in a twist._

Sandry grinned. She couldn’t see Briar’s face, but she knew he was rolling his eyes.

Tris’s spark lit the nearby bit of dead grass on fire. Daja scooped it up so the flames danced in midair, then began to weave them. When she was done, a square of white-hot fire hung in the air. With a flick of her magic, Daja sent the square high into the sky, a makeshift sun. It wasn’t daylight, but it was very different from the dark street Sandry, Martin, and Jon had been walking through earlier.

Sandry’s crystal lay cracked and lightless on the ground before her, the power her siblings had put into it gone. That was okay. It had served its purpose.

She blinked and realized Jon and Martin were staring at her. She smiled at them. “Now we can go.”


End file.
